Curiosity-driven research: Does it exclude a market?

Max Weber in Kyoto, Doshisha University Library (女田図, 361.23||W-34, 閉架(B1F))

Dear reader,

who entered “Durkheim Science as a vacation” in an unknown search engine: Your query has been redirected: My article on the subject quotes Weber, Max – not Durkheim, Émile. Because the former is the author of a great essay on the subject of “Science as a Vocation” – a sort of death drive for recognition. The irony of Weber is that as soon as you are recognized as a substantial contributor to science, you will be most likely … retired.

From the viewpoint of many scholars in Germany it is understandable that students now protest against the implementation of the Bologna reforms. Cramming knowledge of centuries into a couple of semesters leaves little space for personal development or even … curiosity. But going on strike, c’mon, is it really going to revive 1968? We have deadlines, too.

The pleasure of the few is happiness for the many

Already Friedrich Nietzsche lamented the state of the German university back in 1872 (Über die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten). In a conversation of a student and a philosopher-teacher, the student recalls:

“you used to say that no one would long for education if he knew how unbelievably small the number of truly educated people is and can be. And even this small number of truly educated is not really possible without the mass of others, who, against their nature, and determined only by a promising deception, get engaged in education.”

A double analogy at best. Many (the mass) adhere to an ideal of universal education. But for Nietzsche only a few (the truly educated) can attain that ideal. The mass follows an ideal brought down to a “national-economic” formula: “more knowledge and education, thus more production and in the end – more happiness.” If that is the rationale of education, personal development in a more liberal scheme will procure less happiness and less production. Dear reader, the path to less happiness will start with the right terms. And while some are quarreling with the terms, others are operating with factors.

Market accountability – where German and American universities differ

Nathan Rosenberg, professor emeritus of economics at Stanford, recently commented on the structural disparity of German and American universities. His basic assumption was that American higher education was “not a system” but rather an association of individual institutions. His three main points were: 1) research is heavily market oriented 2) graduate students are actively involved and recognized in research and 3) universities are a lot more “responsive” to demands from outside. He was bewildered by the ratio of students per professor in Germany and could not imagine how personal development of individual young researchers was possible under such conditions. A tacit voice from the audience replied: “It isn’t.” But above all he was making the claim that competition among universities for faculty, resources  and students was the driving force behind innovation. American universities are after all “economic institutions” who can manage their day-to-day affairs only on the basis of their interests from accumulated assets.

Stanford University, ⓒ A. Mager

A fellow doctoral student from the USC Annenberg School of Communication commented on a presentation he had seen on an eye-tracking software in Winterthur during a conference on Journalism Research in the Public Interest. The presenter was Sebastian Feuß from the University of Leipzig.  While Feuss presented his findings on the behavior of young people and their online reading/viewing habits in the interest of pure science, my fellow from the USC commented: “If I had that kind of equipment, I’d be a millionaire.” I wouldn’t doubt him. Descending into market orientation – whatever your market may be – is not a bad way to keep your research aligned with public interest. If you want to know a secret about the business world, it will be simple: “Keep the deadline!” Happiness galore.

11/9 – Symbolic Resurrection

For all those readers who were disappointed to find only snippets from a dictionary when looking up my article „define:symbolic“ I actually intended a more elaborate piece. But instead of rehearsing my use of the term with ample reference to Jean Baudrillard or Jacques Lacan, the media and history have offered me a wonderful chance to speak about „The Symbolic“ and personal memories. Twenty years ago, the Berlin wall fell. As a symbol it now emerges from the vaults of collective memory and the archive.

This week, Michael Meyer, communications director of the U.N. secretary general, and a former Newsweek reporter in Berlin, published a review of the events of autumn 1989 in the Herald Tribune. He pointed to the widely held view of Americans that Ronald Reagan‘s words to Mr. Gorbachev somehow magically opened the wall and confirmed a feeling of „We won“ (again). Instead, Meyer points out that the opening of the wall was an achievement of thousands of East Germans pressing against the bars at checkpoints and „sheerest happenstance“. Probably, Philip Zelikow would admit chance as an important historical force as well, while holding up his view of a “great election” between East and West that he saw decided already in the early 80’s.

Thank you, Mr. Gorbachev

My memory of autumn 1989 is focused on a certain Mr. Gorbachev, whom I saw on the West German news show, standing together with the East German politburo, saluting troops and flag wavers at the 40th anniversary of the GDR (7 October). Because this Mr. Gorbachev was regarded as a liberator by my parents and people around us, seeing him side with the GDR government aroused a feeling of dissonance. This person on the screen was not the person I imagined (as a nine-year old). In retrospect, Mr. Gorbachev belonged to a different universe and his appearance in the GDR heralded the latter’s end. Him and the old guards simply did not go together. On 10 November 1989 we walked down Kurfurstendamm.

Down the vortex – symbols never survive

These days, the historic event of the falling wall will have to succumb to its symbolic value. It will have to lend itself to all kinds of interpretations and exhaust its energy in the process of symbolic resurrection. On Monday, it will even fall again. One thousand domino stones, each individually designed by people from all over the world, are in place to reenact a unique event as media spectacle. A project called Twinity will even simulate the wall in a virtual reality environment. The symbolic steps in where the „lived character of things“ (Baudrillard) is transcended in an endless rerun of archival material. In this process of reviewing the same over and over again, a multiplicity of meanings attached to a symbol becomes equal to „no meaning“ at all. That is the precondition of the media‘s fascination with symbolic events.

Unfortunately, 11/9 is going to be a Monday. While German media have excelled at recovering the events of November 1989 in the last weeks – resampling photo stocks, reediting historical material and adding commentary on commentary – the actual memory day will fall prey to publishing schedules. Germany‘s (still) leading news magazine Der Spiegel will open the week with an „in-depth“ report on … The future of German grammar schools.

Check it out!

In its colloquial use this phrase is quite typically associated with new things. It indicates something that is supposed to be unknown or was not (yet) perceived. There is also a social imperative behind this phrase, involving at least one person that has already “checked out” something and another who hasn‘t. Knowledge is handed down, spread and expanded. Yet there is another use which makes this common phrase all the more interesting. In the case of “checking a book out from a library”, for example, the initial recommendation is transformed into a proposition to act and to get hold of something.

“To check” is a Cybernetic metaphor

The placing of the word check here is indicative of an intrusion of cybernetic jargon into common speech. “Checking” is closely associated with surveillance and control, of safeguarding the proper functioning of a machine, a routine or an algorithm. The seemingly trivial remark adopts a whole new dimension pointing toward a cultural condition where the number of choices surpasses what the mind can reasonably and productively process. In the field of cultural production each enunciation exist first and foremost to be communicated at a given point in time. Because production is asynchronous (works on particular subjects) and simultaneous (different actors produce at the same time), continued attention to a multitude of subjects is difficult.

Dissonance and Consonance

Assuming that a given individual can only follow the development of a limited number of elements, “check it out” points to a hitherto unnoticed element and seeks to integrate it into the wider perceptive and interpretative framework. Elements that are excluded from a structure are reviewed and amended to establish consonance or can be rejected to uphold dissonance on firmer grounds. “Check it out“ remains an imperative and a cybernetic metaphor of cultural production. Any selection of elements remains to be expanded by further “checks” on available alternatives and variants. Identity thus established is a temporal marker.

Den Alltag dialektisch verstehen

Eine Frage der Ähre

Man stelle sich einen Hamster mit mittlerer Reife auf der Durchreise von Amsterdam nach Berlin vor, der an der Raststätte Garbsen vor Hannover einen Zwischenstopp einlegt. In froher Erwartung einiger frischer Getreidekörner betritt der Hamster in Begleitung seines Frauchens die Raststätte und muss feststellen: Es gibt nur Wasser! Und das ist bei aller Kundenorientierung der Mitarbeiter auch nur auf Nachfrage zu erhalten. Da er in Damenbegleitung ist, muss er sich der Nahrungsbeschaffung alleine widmen – nur Herrchen dürfen hier ihren Schutzbefohlenen zu Seite stehen.

Auch der etwas betagte Dalmatiner W., der gegen 9.30 Uhr in Begleitung der Familie M. aus G. in Garbsen ankommt, ist erschüttert. Hatte ihm die Grundschule und das Gymnasium bereits 12 Menschenjahre seines ohnehin kurzen Lebens geraubt, muss er jetzt zur Kenntnis nehmen, dass die freundlich-höfliche Anrede seiner Person nur darüber hinweg täuschen soll, dass auch für ihn hier an Wasser und Breckies nur „gedacht“ worden war, Taten sollten in unbestimmter Zeit folgen.

Stellen wir uns abschliessend also jene Person vor, an die sich dieses Schild eigentlich richtet – das Herrchen bzw. den Kunden in seiner Funktion als konsumierender Weltreisender, der zu jeder Zeit an jedem Ort der Autobahn eben jenen Komfort erwarten darf, den er in seiner unmittelbaren Lebensumgebung auch vorfindet. Schließlich ist er es, der, trotz aller Bemühungen demokratischer Bildungspolitik, von allen Mehrbeinern immer noch der einzige ist, der durch die Lektüre abstrakter Buchstaben (in den meisten Fällen) jene zu sinnvollen Worten zusammenfügen und (im besten Fall) auch verstehen kann.

Verstehen wir diese absurde Krönung von Kundenorientierung hier also richtig, müsste sich aus dem Geschriebenen eine Handlungsanweisung ergeben. Bleibt nur die Frage, wer hier handeln soll. Das „Herrchen“, das in absentia implizierte „Frauchen“ oder doch das Team aus Zwei- und Vierbeiner? Wir stellen uns also abschließend den mit Waffenschein ausgestatteten Rottweiler des ledigen Markus P. aus D. vor, der nach der Lektüre dieser Zeilen mit einem kühnen Sprung hinter die Theke des Raststätten-Shops – zu deutsch: Convenience Area – einen prekär beschäftigten Mitarbeiter in eine noch prekärere Lage bringt, indem er ihn durch eindeutiges Augenrollen und lautes Bellen AN DAS AUFFÜLLEN DER WASSERSCHÜSSEL ERINNERT.

PS: Beschwerden bitte an: Autobahn Tank & Rast GmbH,  Andreas-Hermes-Str. 7-9, 53175 Bonn. Telefon 0228/922-0, Email: kundenkontakt@serways.de

Human Patterns

Under the motto “Voir, Observer et Penser” the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris is currently exhibiting about 100 photos by German photographer August Sander (1876-1964). Sander is best known and admired for his work on human types, professions and social classes. His “People of the 20th century” is an attempt to give an image of the people of his time and stands at the center of his human typology. Directed against expressionism Sander employed photography to “create a universal language” by an “objective” image.

His photos show beggars and stars, peasants and artisans – people from all sides of society at the beginning of the 20th century. His magnum opus has been reissued in a collector’s edition of 7 volumes. The exhibit in Paris also features some of his little known landscape portraits of German rivers and mountain regions apart from botanical studies.

August Sander: Brethren, Westerwald (about 1918) Ⓒ Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur - August Sander Archiv, Köln

Characteristically, images are captioned with types of people rather than individual names. His concern lies with patterns in culture and how a social environment shapes posture and facial expression. A “factory owner” posing in tuxedo with his glitzy wife in front of a villa is juxtaposed with a “brick layer” – carrying bricks. His portrays are carefully crafted for each subject alike and allow space for self-reflection. Similar to his landscape studies of rivers, patterning is the overarching theme that he seeks to capture and objectify with his camera.

The problem with looking at such a typology at the beginning of the 21st century is to assume a perspective that is not by default self-referential. Hyper-mediatised as we are, it is difficult to look at an image of an individual and consider it as typical of a larger group. Where we are looking for self-expression and uniqueness, Sander’s photos upset this longing by defying individuality to the people depicted.

Backpackers by exactitudes

A similar focus of a human typology can by found in the Exactitudes project by Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek from Rotterdam. This selection of hundreds of photographs, sorted by types of people and ways of clothing shows how consumer culture intensifies patterning: in clothes, hobbies, music styles and cultural preferences. The objective of typecasting might be a similar one here but in its editorial line, exactitudes underlines the uniformity of consumer culture in full conscience of its heterogeneity.

Descriptive Excess: Jacques Racière’s take on the Reality Effect

Politics of Aesthetics

Given that the height of French structuralist criticism has long passed away (along with its most prolific writers) the review by Jacques Rancière at the Berlin Institute of Cultural Inquiry (ICI) on September 21 was a welcome chance for a couple of hundreds of people to review the “politics of fiction” through an analysis of 18th and 19th century Realist literature.

Starting with Roland Barthes’ classic “The Reality Effect” (1968), Rancière attempts to recapture the political impact of Realist fiction through its radical dismissal of boundaries, of high and low, of subjecting parts to an overarching idea. The “descriptive excess” of Realism, in his words, does not conflate high art and the profane passions of every day life, but affirms that in democratic literature all elements play an equal part in the construction of the text. Invoking Borges’ criticism of Proust (“There are just too many pages in his work!”), Rancière underlines that what a appears as a representation in a Realist novel, actually dissolves representation by putting all signifiers on an equal level. The Real is produced as an effect of the text itself and is not supported by an external reality.

… in other words, the very absence of the signified, to the advantage of the referent alone, becomes the very signifier of realism: the reality effect is produced, the basis of that unavowed verisimilitude which forms the aesthetic of all the standard works of modernity. (p.234)

(Roland Barthes “The Reality Effect” In: Dorothy J. Hale (2006) The Novel: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1900–2000, London: Blackwell, pp. 230-234)

Rancière went on to point to the self-sufficiency of the realist description that self-consciously employs details and description to destabilize existing structures of power. By breaking the distinctions of class, of textual conventions, of conflating different media forms and images, Realist fiction does not so much produce reality as such, but offers “new possibilities of a sensory experience of equality”.

We might add a reference to the Constance School and Wolfgang Iser here to point to the democratic appeal of popular texts precisely because they need to be appropriated by a reader and are not in themselves meaningful.

Rancière has devoted a large part of his research to (re-) negotiations of space, of distribution and division in the legacy of Deleuze, and his more recent works summarize the “Politics of Aesthetics”. His defense of Realist fiction as a political art form might sound surprising. Whereas the Modernists rejected Realism on the grounds of its excessive logic of description, Rancière defends it. Realist fiction embodies a “self-contradiction of cause and effect” and follows a logic of addition (of details or images). Structuralists, Futurists, and Dadaists – in short the Modernist movement – on the other hand favored subtraction in painting, in writing and theater. Rancière emphasizes that Realist excess of description is an immanent criticism of cause and effect as a logical function of language itself. By placing signifiers on equal levels, Realism is the first truly democratic form of fiction and should not be dismissed as a mere representation. Without its representation, he contends, reality remains even more elusive.

This is not Ljubljana - but the ICI hinterland